The Other Path
by Wingtip
Summary: When Freida falls into Middle Earth, she finds herself surrounded not by handsome elves, but by a band of vicious orcs. Her only hope lies in strangers from a distant land, and her own resilience.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** Tolkien owns all.

 **Title:** The Other Path

 **Summary:** When Freida falls into Middle Earth, she finds herself surrounded not by handsome elves, but by a band of vicious orcs. Her only hope lies in strangers from a distant land, and her own resilience.

 **Notes:** First of all, thanks for reading. A quick note, rating may fluctuate a bit. I'm starting things at T, but individual chapters may be rated differently, or I may just bump the whole thing up to M.

Also, This story has been edited; I got a new job and my boss was named Emily, and it was to weird for me, so I went ahead and, seeing as we're only one chapter in, changed the name.

Chapter One

Freida awoke with dew clinging to her skin and itchy grass pressing into her arms. Her body felt sore and tired, like she'd fallen asleep in a car for a long drive. Slowly coming to her senses, she opened her eyes and looked around her. It took a few moments for the fog of sleep to disappear, and for her to fully register the transition from dream to reality.

When she did, she sat bolt upright.

The most pressing question on her mind was _where_ _am I?_ , and _how did I get here_ was a close second. Paralyzing fear, the sort which deafens you to anything but your heartbeat and ragged breath, came quickly, and Freida anxiously rubbed the base of her hand over her heart, a nervous habit she was hardly aware of.

She was still in here pajamas, barefoot. Part of her was aware that she was cold. Part of her was aware she had to pee. Part of her was aware she was hungry. But all of these were being suppressed by the sick feeling rising in her throat.

Someone was bound to show up soon. Tell her it was all a joke. Share a laugh, buy her a coffee. She looks around herself, hands shaking, wondering if whoever had done this had left a note.

The hadn't.

She could feel the tears sting her eyes. The bile in her throat was building. _God, Freida, get it together!_ She looked around again, wondering if she'd missed something. She hadn't. It was a struggle to keep from pinching herself multiple times. She ran her hands up her arms and over her face, though her hair, but it did not help calm her nerves.

Shakily, she stood up. The world was never right until you got out of bed, and maybe this erratic hallucination- what else could it be, after all- would dissipate when her feet touched the cold tile of her floor.

It did not work.

When she was standing, she spun, hoping to see something in the distance; a road, or building, or a town.

All around her was a flat field. It was green and yellow, only grass, and a thin layer of fog was gathered low to the ground, chilling her feet. No hills or mountains obscured her vision, which meant that wherever she was, it was decidedly deserted.

Focusing very hard on being rational, she looked around to see if there were footprints or tire tracks in the damp grass, but the only sign of any disturbance was in the spot she had been lying in.

She was alone, and she had no idea how she got there.

It didn't take long after that realization for her to begin crying. She crouched down and hugged her knees to her chest, sobbing like a child. Some part of her was rational enough to be frustrated with herself, but it was a small voice compared to the fear engulfing her.

How long she stayed like that, millions of thoughts running through her head, she didn't know. But sooner or later, she had run through all the awful possibilities in her head so many times they lost their shock, and the sensible part of her began to grow louder.

 _You probably sleepwalked, or this is a prank. You're fine, you're safe, so stand up and do something!_

Rising and wiping the tears from her eyes, Freida drew in a few deep, if feeble, breaths. The sun was still close to the horizon, meaning it was early in the morning. If she walked far enough, eventually, she'd reach some form of civilization. However she'd gotten here, it had happened between three am, when she'd gone to sleep, and now, so society couldn't be more than a few hours out.

Of course, in what direction to go…

She had no real way of deciding. Whichever route she picked, with her luck, would be the longest.

She looked back to the sun- walking towards or away from it would mean squinting for some part of her journey. The sun rose in the East, so she decided to head North. It took her a little while to figure it out, her head was still swimming, but she turned to her left, praying she remembered basic geography, and began to walk.

It was not a pleasant trek.

The sun steadily rose higher in the sky, and the fog dissipated. While the warmth was, at first, pleasant, it quickly grew hot and humid, and she sun beat down on her. The ground was not soft, but hard and bumpy, and her bare feet tripped and stumbled. More than once she stifled a shriek at finding a strange bug climbing up her leg. Then there was the hunger, thirst, and general feeling of uncleanliness that came when a morning passed with no breakfast, shower, or teethbrushing. She had to pee, and her matted hair itched on her head. Every so often, she stopped herself and tried to rest, but these became more frequent as the time went on.

Inside her head was no more enjoyable.

Her mind kept playing tricks on her- _if you'd gone any other way you'd be home by now_ was a common thought, but the scarier ones were those which caught her off guard. _You've died and this is the afterlife. You're in a coma. A serial killer brought you out here and when you're weak from walking, he'll kill you_. It was all she could do to not cry as she walked.

The truth was, nothing like this ever happened to Freida. She was a linguistics student at a small college, lived close to home. She didn't drink much and never did drugs. Her most exciting stories were about funny things that happened in class or something cool her dog did. She had a few close friends and no enemies she could think of. She thought waking up someplace strange, with no memory of getting there, was the sort of this that happened to exciting girls. Not the sort who read romance novels as a hobby.

So who would have done this, and why, was beyond her. Even her family was boring- at least so far as she knew. Maybe her dad was a CIA agent in hiding and an old enemy had come to seek revenge. But no- she'd seen old pictures of her dad. No way was he fit enough, even in youth, for the CIA.

The day moved on miserably, and with it, her thoughts grew steadily darker, more depressing, and more frightened. Freida could feel her legs turn sore and feeble, and the need to use the bathroom and eat was pushing her to almost give up. But then, as the sun began to set, she saw, in the distance, a small shape.

It grew, over time, and into the night, into several smaller shapes, but in the growing darkness, it was hard to make them out. Eventually, she could discern that they were buildings. The relief that flooded her was unspeakable.

It wasn't until she reached the first of the buildings that she noticed something was off.

It didn't look like anything she'd seen, least of all in her small town. She guessed she could be somewhere out in the boondocks, but she had no idea where this sort of building would be from.

It was stout and made mostly of mud and stone, with a thatched roof. There was a window, but it had no glass pain, only a weak curtain inside, gently swaying. The whole place stank, as well, but who was she to complain?

Tentatively, she knocked on the wooden door.

There was no response.

 _Dammit._

She tried knocking again, and when no one came, she called out, in a small, scared voice, "hello?"

No luck.

She looked towards the path she was on. There were more houses down the way, maybe she'd have more luck with them.

As she walked, she noticed what, other than the old buildings, was odd. There was no light, and no noise. No car motors or twinkling lamps in the distance. It was almost a ghost town.

Shuddering at the thought, she kept moving forwards. _You're just being silly_.

She reached a group of buildings grouped together around a main square. Like the first one, they were build in an old-fashioned style, and reeked.

Maybe it was some tourist town, closed for the fall.

 _Great, just great_ , she told herself, but hoped maybe one building would be open and have a phone- and a restroom.

The first building she reached was small. Part of the roof seemed strange in the darkness. She knocked, and the door swung open.

Still hesitant, but with her desperation getting stronger, Freida stepped into the small house.

It was hard to see anything. The only light was the thin, gray starlight coming in from two small windows in the back. She could make out a few shapes; a table, a small cot. She moved towards the table. Something was slumped over it, and it caught her eye. She moved nearer to it, hovering around it and trying to make it's shape out.

What happened next she wasn't sure- perhaps a cloud moved just right, and the moonlight grey brighter, and for a moment, she saw clearly what she was looking at.

The body was bent over the tale, neck twisted aside at an impossible angle, and blood staining the old man's white hair. His eyes were open, but no light was reflected in them. His arm dangled by his side, limp and swaying ever so slightly. There was a awful, high-pitched noise.

It took Freida only a moment to realize it was her.

She ran out of the house, back into the small square. No one had come at her shriek. Her breathing was ragged and her head was spinning. She had never seen a dead body before. She had never seen someone murdered before.

Her eyes were burning as if she was going to cry, but no tears came. She wondered if she ought to cry for help, but not only was she sure it would go unanswered, but her voice refused to make a sound. She was to afraid to move, to afraid of what she'd find in the other houses. Her mind kept flashing back to what she knew was in the house, the old man, his eyes, his hand, the red against the white, his neck, his eyes, his hand, the red…

The stench was awful. It was getting cold. She was hungry and thirsty and had to pee. Her feet hurt, her legs hurt. She felt filthy and gross. She was afraid. She crouched down and hugged her legs, praying, for the millionth yet most fervent time that day, that this was all an elaborate dream or hallucination.

She did not notice the figure above her until it's large, gray hand grabbed her by the hair and pulled her upwards.

She shrieked again, and then, painfully, it spun her around to look at her, and in the same moment she looked at it.

It was at least six feet tall, gray, with beady, yellow eyes. It was clad in some kind of armor. It's teeth were bared in a snarl. There were little pieces of metal piercing its cheeks. It was something even a nightmare couldn't create.

She was screaming when it through her back to the ground, when it yanked her up by her arm, when it began to drag her through the square. She was screaming as she struggled, and she screamed louder when it cuffed her hard across the face, a ring or something else scratching her chin enough to draw blood. Se screamed the whole way, until they were out of the small grouping of homes and up a hill, where she realized it, whatever it was, was not alone. A dozen other creatures like it were milling about, all uniquely ugly, all uniquely terrifying. With them were two girls- one perhaps twelve, another sixteen. Both looking horrified and scared and confused.

She screamed again, and it cuffed her again, so hard she fell to her knees. And as two of the horde approached her, unable to scream any more or stand and run or do anything, the thing that had brought her here kicked her down in the abdomen, and that was when her body gave in, and she peed.

* * *

 **So that was chapter one! Please leave a review if you enjoyed it (or hated it, or were ambivalent about it); it would really mean a lot to me!**

 **A quick note; while I'm trying to keep this canon-compliant, I'm more concerned with telling an interesting story than sticking to 100% book-accurate info. So if you see something off, please let me know, so I can figure out how to best either work it into the story, or work around it!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Hey all, sorry for the long hiatus. School has been a lot this semester and I haven't had a second. Thank for all the reviews!**

 **Two notes- I changed the protag's name; an explanation is up in the first chapter, but sorry for any confusion.**

 **Second, words in italics denote that Freida is translating them in her head.**

Chapter Two

The thing holding her didn't seem to notice, or care, that Freida had just soiled herself. It cried out something in a horrible, choking language to its comrades, who jeered loudly, and then tossed her over to the two girls. As she fell, she felt her ankle twist beneath her sharply, and she cried out in pain. She landed on her elbows and something sharp cut into her rib cage. The whimper she let escape seemed to amuse the things, as they laughed, or did something which sounded almost like it.

Tentatively, the elder of the two girls moved towards her, opened her mouth to speak, but a bark from the one who had dragged her here silenced her.

Freida peered up at the girl. She looked as filthy as Frieda felt. Her hair, which might have once been blond, looked ashy in the firelight, and her skin was marked with small pimples, bruises, and scrapes. Her dress was odd- ill fitting, plain, roughly made, and torn and patched several times over. It was then Freida noticed her hands were bound.

She had been so intently studying the girl that she did not notice the Thing, as she mentally dubbed the creature that had captured her, speaking to her until it kicked her roughly in the side.

"I don't understand you!" Freida could feel tears in her eyes as she spoke, her voice hoarse and weak.

It repeated what it had said earlier, or something very near, but it was not like any language she had ever heard before.

"I don't understand! What do you want?"

The Thing peered down at her, quizzical for a moment, and then said something in a decidedly different language. This one sounded like old English, and judging from the looks on the two girls faces, they understood.

"I don't… I don't know what you're saying…" was all Freida could manage.

Thing, clearly fed up, rolled his yellow eyes and crouched down closely to her. She tried to scurry away, but it grabbed her by the arm and held her still. Up close, she could see the sallow tone of his skin, the jagged, unhealed wounds on his face… he was like a creature from an old horror film, come to life.

His voice cut through her thoughts, slow and gravely and clearly asking some question, but her only response was to shake her head, wishing, more than anything, that his clammy, rough grip on her would ease.

It finally did, when he roughly shoved her into the two other girls. Freida realized that the younger of the two did not have her hands bound, and was doing her best to help steady her.

Thing cried something to another one of the others- Stoneface, was what Frieda thought, as his narrow visage was pockmarked and seemed to almost have barnacle-like growths sprouting from it. Stoneface pulled from a pack half a loaf of dark bread and a leather sack that Freida realized was full of some liquid. He tossed it to the ground at the three girls.

The younger one, hands unbound and not paralyzed with fear as Freida was, broke off a small piece of bread and handed it to Freida. With a shaky hand, she took it, her stomach contracting in a painful reminder of her hunger.

"Thank you," she said, hoping these girls spoke English. From the helpless look on their faces, her words, if not her meaning, had been lost.

The bread was stale, and the water from the sack more disgusting than anything else she'd drank, but having food in her system managed to stop her body from vibrating quite so much, and she was able to slowly breath and try to grasp what had happened.

It was utterly incomprehensible of course, the only possible solution being that she was living through a terrible nightmare. But she began to at least register where she was.

The camp was pitched in a field not dissimilar to the one she had awoken in that morning. A large fire was at its center, though the group of creatures was large enough the two or three smaller fires had been pitched around it. The girls were being kept between the main fire and one of the smaller ones, surrounded completely by the horde. All around them Freida could here the rough speech of the creatures, and she managed to pick up some words, _agh_ , which she figured was some sort of conjunction, and _u_ was used frequently as well. She made out _glob_ and _snaga_ as singular words, but could not piece together their meaning. She gathered _glob_ might be some sort of insult or lowly title, based on the way they threw it around. But the language was ugly to her; it was as if it was designed to be rough and repulsive, and in all her studies Freida had learned nothing like it.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the younger girl saying something to her. Freida looked up at her, and shook her head helplessly.

"Do you speak English?" she asked tentatively. The girl frown.

She repeated her earlier words more slowly, and Freida pieced them together as a language that, while not old English, was something vaguely similar. She wracked her brain, trying to remember snatches of Beowulf or some other Anglo-Saxon work to draw on, or even one of her professors long winded lectures.

" _I…_ " she began, only to soon find herself at a loss. Both girls had seemed to understand, though perhaps not perfectly, her word. " _I Freida"_ she tried. They looked confused. Sitting up a little, Freida pointed to herself, and repeated her sentence.

The elder of the two girls nodded, pointed at Frieda, and said what Freida believed was " _you, Freida_ ," though the word _you_ was strange to her

"Yes- _I, Freida_." She hesitated, then pointed at the older girl and repeated " _you?_ "

The girl, nodding in comprehension, pointed to herself as best she could with her bound hands and said, slowly and quietly, " _I am Alfreda_ "

" _Am?_ "

The girl nodded. " _I am. You-_ " she pointed back at Freida, " _are_ ". Then she pointed to the younger girl, " _She is Cyneburga_ "

Freida repeated back the words. Then, she pointed to each of the three girls and repeated back their names.

When Alfreda nodded, Freida felt so happy she could cry. He she was, filthier than she had ever been, tired, aching, hungry, surrounded by a nightmarish scene, yet she no longer felt as alone. Of course, she had some ways to go. She wasn't certain she had fully understood Alfreda and even if she had, knowing "is" and "am" was only the beginning of grasping a language. And of course there was the issue of what these languages were, where they came from- but she had been understood, however slightly, and that had been the first thing that had gone right for her since waking up.

Her mood was quickly shattered by the harsh barking of Stoneface. Perhaps he was their "keeper,"though for what, she did not know.

Alfreda said something sharp back to him, a fiery gleam flashed in her eyes for a moment, and Stoneface made to strike her, but the young girl, Cyneburga, spoke up quickly. Stoneface, though not appeased, judging from his expression, lowered his hand, and settled for shoving Alfreda back with his foot. That, at least, shed light on why only her hands were bound.

The night dragged on in a slow, terrifying pace. However tired Freida was, she could not sleep for more than a moment or two without the cries of the creatures left awake to guard the camp jolting her up. She was freezing, her legs especially as the urine turned icy, and the ground was hard. Stoneface, while awake, made every effort to keep the girls from talking. And so while Freida managed to grasp _yes_ and _no_ by way of head shaking and nodding, and learned Alfreda called the creatures _orcs_ , nothing else was learned.

Towards dawn, the camp awoke, and Freida, who had just managed a fitful half hour of sleep, was yanked up. Once again, Cyneburga was tossed bread and water, which they split between them. Stoneface lead them away, and barked something. Hesitantly, Alfreda and Cyneburga both lifted their skirts to pee. Freida was disgusted, though she well knew she had no right to be. But Stoneface's lear made her stubborn, and she refused to yank down her trousers until he made to grab at them. Then, blushing a furious and humiliated, she complied.

If she had thought the day prior was tiring, she was in for a painful journey today.

Each girl was guarded by a specific orc when they moved. Stoneface marched with Alfreda, who clearly he felt needed most of his attention. A smaller one, who's slight limp made him Stump-leg in Freida's mind, marched Cyneburga. She was walked by one she called Bone-Nose, whose face was more horrifying than the rest. He kept a tight grip on the back of her neck, half dragging, half pushing her when her feet faltered, or when her injured ankle made her cry out in pain.

Thing was not the leader, she found, instead, he walked through the ranks and occasionally barked commands- Freida, in her clearer moments, was able to make out what _faster_ was, and nothing else.

It was ceaseless. Their pace did not falter, and they stopped only once at midday. On her tired legs and aching body, Freida was unsure how she did not blackout. Once the sun began to set, it hit their eyes directly, and she was forced to stare, bleary eyed, at the ground and she stumbled across it.

She almost cried when they finally stopped for the night. Stoneface once again took them to urinate, there was so little water in Freida that it had little effect, but it still angered her. They were tossed again in a heap, thrown bread and a water sack, and then, thankfully, ignored for some time.

Alfreda was quickly asleep. Freida understood why, her own eyes dropping against her will. But each time they closed for more than a second, they snapped open once more, her fear keeping her awake. Cyneburga seemed to feel the same, as both girls lay on their sides.

Freida studied the girl; she couldn't be a teenager yet. Her face was small and had that unfinished look, and her body was, from what Freida could tell, undeveloped. But she had an appearance to her; something hard and sad. For how long had these girls been taken?

It was an hour past making camp when Stoneface dropped something beside them- ratty, dirty cloths. Freida shared a look with Cyneburga, and they seemed to agree, even this, louse ridden as it must be, was better than facing the night cold.

Soon after being given the blanket, Freida found she could fight the exhaustion no longer.

Her sleep was mercifully dreamless.

* * *

 **So there's chapter two; hope it was worth the wait! please leave a review and let me know what you think!**


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